Reply With QuoteIt could be a fragment of the asteroid which started the Coronavirus.
Don't touch it.
My son found this whilst poking around in the garden (his favourite activity). As you can see it has a smooth curved surface like a liquid has cooled inside a mould and a broken crystalline looking surface. My initial reaction on seeing the smooth bit was pitch but it is hard to the touch and when knocked against a glass the sound you get is glass on glass. I also wondered if it might be some sort of slag, either industrial (how did it get here) or pre-industrial. We live in an area where the soil contains many iron rich rocks and there are sites of early iron working within a few miles.
My son would love the mystery solved so your thoughts would be much appreciated.
Last edited by Jeremy67; 9th June 2020 at 09:48.
It could be a fragment of the asteroid which started the Coronavirus.
Don't touch it.
Although no trees were harmed during the creation of this post, a large number of electrons were greatly inconvenienced.
Kryptonite.
i think you are on the right lines in terms of slag. my first thought was its Anthracite coal
That's usually the first question I ask myself.Originally Posted by Jeremy67
My knowledge of rocks isn't great but it certainly looks like an industrial by-product. It looks igneous.
My money is on pitch. Break a bit off and burn it. I bet it stinks!
Pitch is really cool - it's a liquid you can shatter!
Looking for a picture I found this, which might amuse!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28402709
Last edited by M4tt; 13th May 2020 at 16:47.
Dragon Glass - throw it at your local White Walker.
Could be lump of Jet.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
My guess would be Jet
Could be Ambergris if you have had whales in the garden, very expensive about £40k a lb.
Lignite seems similar if you Google it.
A proper vitreous slag can look like this, and can usually be identified by whether the inclusions (the non-glassy bits) are related to the local iundustry.
Very few processes produce a truly liquid slag (like this) intentionally, as the liquid runs everywhere and usually blinds the process you are trying to undertake, coating the reagents and stopping them from reacting.
Volcanoes can produce black glass, generally called obsidian (which is one of my favourite words) - not known locally to Hampshire. Nearest would be in Scotland, I think
Neither is jet local to you, it is not so glassy either.
So alsmot certainly slag from a runaway combustion process.
It’s a slowrock
The last curious thing I found while gardening was a very rusty Mills bomb....
That describes beautifully my pre-marital adulthood.
Could just be my eyes....
Many thanks folks, for entertainment as well as information.
While it does looks very much like anthracite from some angles it just feels too glassy. That combined with the melted appearance on one side are leading me towards slag.
Yes, it's a difficult one.
Many of us have been led towards slag and it hasn't always worked out that well.
Could it be an industrial dangleberry? I'm not sure of the technical term.
What's the MO for a grenade find - call in EOD or lob to a safe place?
Horse apple
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Ideally, if it's anywhere near the sea you can opt to push it in. That way it's the Royal Navy's problem.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
^Makes sense.
The Navy must be used to people pushing it in.
Ha ha! Excellent bants
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From the photos, that looks like it could be Obsidian, possibly of the "snowflake" variety.
https://www.google.com/search?q=obsi...w=1372&bih=780
It's a very hard, igneous rock, with a glassy look and feel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian
If it is, it is almost certainly not native to your location though. Where and how was it found exactly?
Or it could be glass slag, which is probably more likely in the UK.
So clever my foot fell off.
I spent 25 years dealing with geological enquiries in two major museums, and unidentified vitreous substances were a regular enquiry. Possibles for this are -
Pitch/tar - distinguished by light weight (roughly = plastic) and tarry/bituminous smell, even when cold.
Glassblowing waste - usually dark brown/green through clear, very rarely completely black, usually transparent to some extent, very brittle, very sharp-edged. Often rather shattered in appearance. Can have a "rainbow" irridescence if it's very old.
Ironworking slag - can be glassy or matt, pale grey and "frothy" thru to absolutely black and uniform, often has evidence of "flow", swirls etc. Normally thoroughly opaque, usually heavier than an equivalent-sized chunk of flint.
Leadmaking slag - similar to above - usually dark and glassy, but distinguished by being very heavy for any given size. Can be toxic - lead and minor arsenic present, always wash your hands after handling.
Brickmaking waste - if a kiln gets too hot, outer parts of the stack can vitrify; this material is usually a bluish slate-grey, often has bubbles, moderate to light weight, rather matt surfaces.
Bonfire waste - occasionally a bonfire gets hot enough to melt glass, but most commonly it'll be various plastics that have melted and coalesced into an amorphous lump. Light in weight, often pale/bright in colour, soft and somewhat flexible. Melted plastic can also have some really nasty toxins associated. Try not to handle / wash hands after.
Coal - very black, fairly light, rarely truly vitreous, distinct odour up close.
Charcoal - very black, very light, very soft, usually distinctly woody structure but occasionally glassy.
Jet - MUCH rarer than people think, even in the rocks that contain it (M-U Lias, N. Yorks coast, mainly). Black, somewhat glassy, lightish, usually quite small pieces.
Lignite - black to dark brown, light in weight, usually smells somewhat of sulphur. Usually splits, flakes and crumbles as it dries out.
Flint/Chert - incredibly common materials as they're so durable, and often shipped-about for building and roadmaking. Medium weight, anything from white via yellow, orange, brown, thru mid to very dark grey. Brittle - breaks with a smooth, even, rippled, shell-like concave fracture. Can be multiple colours, striped, contain fossils, and be wonderfully contorted, uneven shapes. Rarely very big. Honestly, if you can't recognise a lump of flint you should probably stay indoors and not scare your carers by wandering off like that...
Obsidian - it probably isn't. Black thru light tan, glassy, uniform, hard, moderate weight. Rare and localised in the UK.
Meteorite - No. Unless you've been in Antarctica / Namibian desert, it just isn't. They're very rare. Most are either stony or metallic. Glassy isn't really a thing here.
E&OE - these are generalisations.
The industrial stuff is usually confined to industrial areas, but humans have been picking-up curios since we learned to walk upright (it even has a name: "manuport"), so, while what looks like ironmaking slag doesn't really belong in Petersfield - there were ironworks in both the Weald and New Forest, so I'm guessing a previous resident picked it up there, and in the way of things it was eventually heaved out into the garden.
Amazing what ends-up on rockeries - I had an entire, comprehensive fossil collection show-up for ID some years ago - presumably thrown onto a compost heap decades earlier by a "grieving" widow, bitter that it occupied more of the late hubby's time than she ever did...
/\
Always great to hear from an expert! I’ve learned something here today!
So clever my foot fell off.
Yes, indeed! That was very interesting. Thank you @earlofsodbury.
@earlofsodbury Surely meteorites are just as common elsewhere but are just more obvious in those locations?
Great info though!
If you read what I wrote, I don't claim they fall more or less rarely in any particular place. Obviously non-vegetated desert areas make finding them easier, especially zones where the wind winnows-away enclosing materials. FWIW, in all probability there are some patterns to distribution - showers can be repeat events when debris fields complete whatever orbits they're on, but there's no meaningful data to establish support this supposition.
Wish I had a pound for every "meteorite" that arrived at the front desk ... I'd be able to afford a Patek from that alone. In 25 years I never saw a single one that hadn't been purchased from a dealer, and some of those were fakes... Commonest mistaken ID were the marcasite nodules that are common in parts of the Upper Chalk - fair enough really, they look more like people expect a meteorite to look than any actual meteorite ever does, odd looking things, and are heavy and metallic when unweathered -
The challenge wasn't usually identifying things the public bought-in, but finding constructive and interesting ways to let them down gently and explain what they had actually found. Kids were great and almost always got engaged and interested, adults less so - had a few meltdowns from people who'd already decided what they'd found and wanted a pat-on-the-head for being a clever boy... "Get me a REAL expert, you don't know what you're talking about!!!" etc. So I'd saunter off to the common room and ask the oldest, beardiest bloke in there to come and tell the punter what I'd just told them - Ron the cleaner loved his 15 minutes of fame(true story)
I remembered that I have this little object that I can't identify, although I think it seems to fit some of the characteristics of volcanic matter. It isn't metal or magnetic and appears to allow some light through although I can't be sure because I haven't got a bright enough light with a really narrowly focussed beam. I have had it so long I can't remember where I found it but I think it was in a load of gravel used for a path.
I wondered if anyone might have any ideas.
Last edited by Stanford; 21st June 2020 at 21:16.
I've never gone to bed with a slag. I've woken up next to a few though!
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
You should have dug underneath it, might have found this...
This, imo. It looks very much like glass slag, that is to say what is in effect artificial obsidian.
I have experience on more than one occasion of finding some in the gravel/old loose track ballast in an old railway yard. Whether it was created there (as a side effect of some sort of very hot process) or shipped in with the rocks, I don't know. Either way, I thought it more likely to be artificially created than an unlikely find of natural obsidian.
Also obsidian by the looks of it imo, most likely artificial (i.e. glass slag). The shape is probably due to it being a drop that oozed downwards, cooling as it went.
That said, if you found it near a volcano then who knows. ;-)
Useful knowledge! Thanks.
I assumed the same, but used to tell my kids it was a fossilised dinosaur tear
Is the slight greenish tint in the second pic (above) present on the specimen, or just the camera playing silly buggers?I remembered that I have this little object that I can't identify, although I think it seems to fit some of the characteristics of volcanic matter. It isn't metal or magnetic and appears to allow some light through although I can't be sure because I haven't got a bright enough light with a really narrowly focussed beam. I have had it so long I can't remember where I found it but I think it was in a load of gravel used for a path.
I wondered if anyone might have any ideas.
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